Emma Thompson

Actress Emma Thompson said of Sharon Stone shagging in Basic Instinct: “If that had been me, there would have been things flying around hitting me in the eye.” Our icon!

by Alex Whiteley

Dear Emma Thompson,

In a world of vapid, borderline anorexic celebrities famous for doing nothing much, you prove that there is still space in this world for hard-working talented people to prove themselves to the world. As well as being one of the foremost actors of your generation, you’re an icon of off-beat style and the personification of the phrase ‘thinking man’s crumpet’. Not only this, you use your privileged position to help others with your extensive charity work.

Thank you for being famous for doing something very worthwhile and for being so gosh-darn nice. Emma, lovey-darling, you are fabulous.

Love Mookychick xxx

Emma Thompson Quotes

On why she turned down the lead role in Basic Instinct – “As far as I can see, from Sharon Stone’s love scene in Basic Instinct (1992), they moulded her body out of tough Plasticine. She was shagging Michael Douglas like a donkey, and not an inch moved. If that had been me, there would have been things flying around hitting me in the eye”.

“I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word: Politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit.”

“I am who I am and there is nothing I can do about that.”

“I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn’t much of a stretch.”

“If you’ve got to my age, you’ve probably had your heart broken many times. So it’s not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.”

Best Known For

Being the first (and so far only) person to win Oscars for both acting and writing, and being one of only ten people to have been nominated for best actor and best supporting Oscars in the same year.

Least Known For

Emma is a passionate campaigner for charity. She has spoken very publically about her environmental views, and is vehemently opposed to the new Heathrow runway. She is also involved in human rights. At a 2003 Refugee Council Christmas party, she met former Rwandan child soldier Tindyebwa Agaba and invited him to spend Christmas with her family when she found out he had been sleeping on the streets. She then unofficially adopted him, funding his degrees at Exeter and Cambridge, and fighting government plans to deport him.

Mooky Factor

Emma Thompson is a woman who knows what she wants in life and reaches for it. She is the perfect mix of intelligence, kindness, style and talent and never, even gives up. And, despite achieving world-wide success, she keeps both feet firmly on the floor, acknowledging her weaknesses and insecurities and having that rarest of talents, the ability to laugh at herself. She never tries to be anything but herself, and that is what being truly mooky is all about.

A Short History of Emma Thompson

Em (as her friends call her) was born in London in 1959 into a true showbiz family. Her dad was Eric Thompson (the voice of our childhoods as the narrator of The Magic Roundabout) and Scottish actress Phyllida Law is her mum. With parents like those (not to mention her actress sister, Sophie) she was always going to end up in entertainment but, despite being signed to an acting agent at 19, she chose to put her career on pause to study at Cambridge. It was there that Emma achieved a 2.1 in English literature, shaved her head in the name of feminism, had a passionate love affair with Hugh Laurie and perhaps most importantly, joined the Cambridge Footlights, the club which has been attended over the years by everyone from Monty Python to Mitchell and Webb. Along with fellow Footlight members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, she won the Edinburgh Fringe Perrier Award.

From then her career rocketed, covering stage, screen and TV. On one of her first jobs, the TV epic Fortunes of War, she met acting superstar Kenneth Branagh. They married in 1989 and were for a time considered the ‘First Couple’ of British entertainment, starring in several movies together. However the couple went their separate ways in 1995, when Ken began a relationship with Helena Bonham-Carter, and Emma with Greg Wise. She gave birth to her and Greg’s daughter Gaia Romilly Wise in 1999, but the couple did not marry until 2003. They also have a unofficially adopted Rwandan son.

As well as performing, Emma is a talented writer. She adapted Nanny McPhee into a film which she co-starred with Colin Firth in and is working on a sequel to this at present. Her most successful script however was 1995’s Sense and Sensibility. She won the writing Oscar for this and was nominated for best actress. To date she has received four Oscar nominations for acting, winning in 1993 for Howard’s End.